Breakfast in Dixie

[40-82 hiker]

You all made me really hungry with this thread. Late at night, no less!

Still love my grits for breakfast! Usually make enough for leftover to fry the next morning, getting the slices as crisp as possible.

I roasted some jalapenos once and stuffed them with sliced grits and cheese, then slid them in the oven a few minutes. I couldn't get much in them, but heck if they weren't good! Need to do that again...

This morning I made us buckwheat pancakes, fried ham, and a couple of eggs. Good eats!

[762 shooter]

Yesterday I ate like a King.

Bowl of grits, over easy egg on top with country ham covered with red-eye gravy.

Ummmm. May have grits and cheese with salmon croquettes for supper next week.

762

[smokeywolf]

Born and raised in SoCal, I reckon I'm a yank. But, Mom was a Southern girl and Dad was old fashioned meat and potatoes. Weekend breakfasts often included grits. Mom wasn't much of a cook. She did, ham, homemade pizza, grits, barley soup, lentil soup and a few others quite well. Pork chops, liver and pretty much any other meat would be fried to shoe leather or incinerated in the oven.

I do miss her grits.

I cook breakfast on school mornings. I like cooking for the family and am of the opinion that children should get a hot breakfast before school. I have no idea what a "breakfast taco" is, but I do make juevos rancheros.

I also will take mashed potatoes left over from dinner and warm them a little in microwave, then drop them into a fry pan, flatten them out, heat them the rest of the way, sprinkle shredded cheese and bacon bits on them, then drop a couple of fried eggs on top. Kids also get a small portion of homemade yogurt and a fruit or fruit juice.

At least 3 mornings out of five I serve either bacon, ham, sausage or steak with breakfast.

Reminds me. When I was a kid, I frequently fried my own eggs. Learned to do it when I was 6. In those days eggs usually came with the milk and cottage cheese delivered by the milk man. What ever happened to eggs with double yokes. Would usually see one out of maybe 3 dozen eggs with double yokes. Haven't seen a double yoke in at least 20 years now. What the heck happened to that?

[farmerjim]

I get some double yokes when I buy Jumbo eggs. I would get them sometimes when I raised some New Hampshire Reds. My favorite eggs are Guinea eggs. Small, hard shell, And mostly all yoke. I had a hundred or so of them once and I turned them loose. It took about 6 months for the coons and other animals to get them all. I haven't had a Guinea egg in about 10 years. Nobody raises them for eggs around here anymore.

[Blackwater]

Smokey, you made me laugh. I remembered making a small spectacle of myself in grocery stores 3 times in the past. Two were in San Diego at the PX grocery store, when I found some bedraggled turnips (mostly roots there!) and a 2nd time when I found some rudabegas. When I saw them (only time in over a year I ever found any in the PX), I rather loudly told my wife, "Look! Turnips!" and "Look! Rudabegas!" People turned and looked at me like I had 3 heads!

The 3rd time was in either Kansas or Indiana, when on a business trip. I found a pk. of Jim Dandy Quick Grits, and for a 3rd time in a grocery store, loudly proclaimed, "Look! Grits!!!" People looked at me, started crossing themselves, and hurried to the checkout, lest whatever I had might be contagious! But gee golly wow was I one happy man! When we ate quick meals, I kept a packet or two in my inside pocket of my suit, and a couple of times, got diners or whoever to fix them for me. It was SO wonderful to get some "staples" in a "foreign" environment!

Now that I almost never eat them, I have to take my thrills vicariously from those who still can. I really, really miss them, BIG time!

[Shiloh]

It seems that in Texas, folks are in love with the "breakfast taco". I hate, loath and abominate those things and can't abide the look or smell of them, much less the taste. I mentioned this to my wife this morning and she said "I was true to my Southern roots". I prefer the aforementioned victals to any of the faux Meskin crapola.

Breakfast burrito with a side of menudo. Had that in Killeen Near the east gate of Ft. Hood.

Shiloh

[DLCTEX]

Big difference in taco and burrito. You can make a breakfast burrito however you want. I like sausage, egg, cheese, green chilies, and onion in a flour tortilla. I have eaten the above with hash browns mixed in. Some substitute charrizo for the pork sausage. Whatever floats your boat.
Darn spellcheck keeps changing charrizo to charcoal.

[johnson1942]

the first 7 years of my life my mom and dad lived with my dads norweigen parents on their farm. every morning for breakfast we had slices of home made bread toasted lightly with thick farm fresh sour cream piled on the toast and then cokecherry syrup on the sour cream. one year we got a hold of a 5 gallon pail of clover honey. that was a norwegien breakfast, still eat it now and then. the farm fresh sour cream was better though. had no fridge in those days, put every thing cream included in containers and then in a bucket and that went down in the well on a rope. kept every thing nice a cool. norweigens loved their cream in the old days. we made our own butter also and we drank a lot of butter milk also.

[sundog]

Grits is mighty fine fare. Home made biscuits and blackstrap or honey, and ham and eggs. Dark roast coffee.

Charles, even though I will tolerate an occasional 'breakfast burrito' while on the run, I would much prefer to sit down to much more traditional style southwest breakfast something like huevos rancheros or huevos divorciados, frijoles refritos, y arroz espanol, and tortillas, of course.

[Char-Gar]

I grew up and still live in Deep South Texas, hard against the Mexican border. Grits did not make it this far into Texas. The first bowl of grits I ever ate, was in June of 1957 at a cafe in Chattanooga, Tenn. They tasted like library paste, but a fellow sitting next to me told me to put salt, pepper and butter in them. I did and have liked them ever since, except I am likely to add some shredded cheese as well.

Corky...I like a traditional Mexican sit down breakfast as well. Most of them time I will have either Chiliquilas or Mexican Tacos. Mexican tacos or tacos al carbon, are shaved beef, white cheese, cilantro, grilled onions and some lime to squeeze on top. If you use pork instead of beef they are called tacos al pastor. Some places they are called tacos estilo Jalisco (Jalisco style). Whatever they are called, they are wonderful.

What most folks call tacos, tortilla, spiced ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes and yellow cheese is pure Tex-Mex. American Tacos as they are sometimes called down here, as opposed to Mexican tacos.

I am not against real Mexican food or Tex-Mex, but these "breakfast tacos" are neither. The locals gobble them up, poor fools! They are odious things!

All in all, my notion of a larapin good breakfast is biscuits, butter, grits, sawmill gravy, a couple of eggs and some kind of meat off a dead pig. The dead pig can be bacon, country ham or sausage. This is my default breakfast mode, true to my Southern roots. Dixie forever!!! God bless Texas !!!

[Char-Gar]

Blackwater, Texans of any class do not eat rudabegas. Some of the lower socio-ecnomic class might eat a turnip ever now and them. Being a high toned sort of guy, I don't eat either. What kind of humans eat roots!

[Char-Gar]

Breakfast burrito with a side of menudo. Had that in Killeen Near the east gate of Ft. Hood.

Shiloh

Well bless your heart! And Mexican gut soup too! I don't eat ofal.

[Blackwater]

Blackwater, Texans of any class do not eat rudabegas. Some of the lower socio-ecnomic class might eat a turnip ever now and them. Being a high toned sort of guy, I don't eat either. What kind of humans eat roots!

Well, ever heard of yams or sweet potatoes, turnips (we always chop up the roots in the greens here, sometimes with LA hot sauce and pepper vinegar), or onions? There's also beets, too, and others. Funny story: While in San Diego, I had a friend who'd gone fishing in Lake Otay, and brought a couple of bass and crappie by my apt. for us, because he had no way to cook them living in the baracks. We were tickled to have them, and he'd stopped in the evening at supper time, and we already had the rutabegas cooked, and invited him to eat with us because it would be too late to eat at the mess hall. I asked him if he liked rutabegas, and he said yes, so we sat down to what my wife and I regarded as a sumptuous meal. He put a good helping on his plate, but little along, kind'a swirled his fork around in them, creating what looked like a hole in the center so it'd look like he'd eaten more than he had. I suspect he stopped and got a candy bar to hold him until breakfast the following day.

So yeah, I understand, but gee golly wow are ya' missin' some FINE eatin'! Not everybody here likes them either, so you're in good company, but people from all walks of life love and/or hate them. I'm just one of the ones who love them. And they tend to "stick to your ribs," kind'a like grits. Good fuel for some, not so much for others, but everything under the sun is like that, I guess. Some foods just moreso than others.

We cook them by chopping into cubes, boiling in some salt (just the right amount, and only experience will tailor your needs to your taste buds), and include some chicken stock or bullion. That bullion really makes them good!

And some are sweeter than others, too, as with so many other veggies. We do them simply, as described above, and serve them mashed, like potatoes. Some I've seen put butter in them, too. As a diabetic, they seem to mesh well with my needs now for both nutrition and low sugar/easily converted carb content. I guess I'm lucky I DO like them?

They might be similar to your experience with grits, which area also highly controversial. Everyone I've ever talked to who took them for cream of wheat, and put sugar in them, absolutely HATES them! Those who started off with salt, pepper and butter (after all, it's just corn) tend to really like them when they can find the right amount of each to put on them. Rutabegas might turn out to be similar for you. How they're prepared makes a HUGE difference, and that bullion/stock often turns folks into eaters who'd been haters. Sometimes, it's a slight difference that makes something very much more palatable. Then too, they may just not ever suit you, but if you want to try, that's what I'd offer for a suggestion. More for me if you don't!!!

[Ole Joe Clarke]

I sometimes joke about only liking food that starts with an "A", but when I was a kid growing up, that "A" meant ANYTHING. My dad was a sharecropper and sometimes there wasn't anything to share. Beans, cornbread and potatoes was our main food group. Of course everybody around us was poor, so we didn't know we were. I remember eating turtle, quail eggs, turnips and all sorts of things my Mom made up from what she had on hand.

One time that stands out, was when there was only cornmeal in the house and Mom made some kind of thin soup for us. Looking back, it must have been thin grits.

Times were hard, and then my Dad died at the young age of 49 from a stroke. But we made it, and I wouldn't take anything for the journey. One thing I regret is not being able to grow into a man and still have my Dad around. But, I plan on seeing him again one day.

Have a blessed evening,

Leon

[smokeywolf]

OK, I can't get grits out of my head now. Used to just add butter to the grits Mom cooked and although they were good, I think I can do better.

Can some of you fine Southern gentlemen prescribe a brand of grits to buy; I'm assuming genuine stone ground is the best. White or yellow. And finally, your favorite way to prepare them.

Already looked on youtube and saw a couple of recipes that look quite good, but trust y'all more.

[Grits]

Grits. All you need is butter and salt to taste. Thats for me.

Just like a 1911, grits are highly customizable. Whatever suits your taste.

[MaryB]

I detest turnip root BUT the greens are fine eating! Only reason I plant them! I give the roots away in fall.

I sometimes joke about only liking food that starts with an "A", but when I was a kid growing up, that "A" meant ANYTHING. My dad was a sharecropper and sometimes there wasn't anything to share. Beans, cornbread and potatoes was our main food group. Of course everybody around us was poor, so we didn't know we were. I remember eating turtle, quail eggs, turnips and all sorts of things my Mom made up from what she had on hand.

One time that stands out, was when there was only cornmeal in the house and Mom made some kind of thin soup for us. Looking back, it must have been thin grits.

Times were hard, and then my Dad died at the young age of 49 from a stroke. But we made it, and I wouldn't take anything for the journey. One thing I regret is not being able to grow into a man and still have my Dad around. But, I plan on seeing him again one day.

Have a blessed evening,

Leon

[Rick N Bama]

He must be in North Alabama. Not South enough for grits. It ant Breakfast without real Grits.

You have to go way north of North Alabama to not find Grits on the menu!

[DLCTEX]

This Texan likes turnips, beets, sweet potatoes, and many other roots. I don't like chocolate, even when I was a kid.

[Lance Boyle]

Ahh Smokeywolf yep those left over mashed taters make fine breakfast fixings.

I'll mince up some onion, add some salt and pepper, maybe some cayenne, some chopped green pepper if I have it, mix in some egg and some bread crumps and make my version of potato pancakes. Serve with ham and eggs and I'm in heaven....with some black coffee too.

I liked cream of wheat as kid with enough butter and maple. The grits didn't do much for me I'm afraid. They weren't bad, just didn't fit my idea of breakfast the way I grew up. Mom really liked us to get a hot meal before going off to school, usually oatmeal or CoW. Sometimes eggs and bacon but that was normally a Sunday breakfast thing; scrambled eggs, still love my mom's scrambled eggs, some bacon and toast and have an extra piece of toast just for some jam to make a petite dessert.